A mass extinction occurred about this time. In 1999 it was reported that a titanic volcanic eruption occurred about this time and split an ancient super-continent. This process began the formation of the Atlantic Ocean. Half of all marine species died in a few million years. [see 252 and 225 mil]
Links: Volcano, Extinction, HistoryBC

An increase in temperature prompted a major shift in plant distribution. In 2005 scientists reported that Earth warmed 9 to 18 degrees over a 10,000 years to a warm period that lasted 80-120 thousand years. Plants in the southern US spread 1,000 miles from the gulf Coast to Wyoming, and disappeared when the climate cooled off. In 2007 scientists said that it took about 200,000 years for the atmospheric carbon from volcanic eruptions to be transferred to the deep ocean, allowing the planet to cool.
Links: Environment, Earth, Volcano, Wyoming, Botany, HistoryBC

3.4Mil BC

In California volcanic ash from about this time covered coastal redwood forests. In 1871 petrified redwood trees, dating to this time, were discovered in Calistoga, Ca.
Links: California, Volcano, Trees, HistoryBC

2.8Mil BC

Volcanic eruptions in the area of Flagstaff, Arizona, began building a 16,000-foot volcano. It later became known as the San Francisco Mountain and in 2006 stood at 12,643-feet.
Links: Arizona, Volcano, HistoryBC

Ascension Island, the top of a volcano, broke through the surface of the Atlantic Ocean about this time. Since then the island has grown to about 100 square km.
Links: Volcano, HistoryBC, Ascension

800000 BC

The Haleakala shield volcano on Maui, Hawaii, appeared about this time.
Links: Volcano, Hawaii

700000 BC

A pyroclastic flow (hot gasses, pumice and other dry volcanic materials that roar down a volcano's slopes at one hundred km an hour) in California's Long Valley was so huge that it topped the Sierra Nevada.
Links: California, Volcano, HistoryBC

640000 BC

Volcanic eruptions in northwest Wyoming, extending to Idaho and Montana, created a caldera some 40 miles long and 30 miles wide. The surface collapsed thousands of feet into a magma pool and marked the area later known as Yellowstone. Continuing eruptions caused climactic changes around the world.
Links: USA, Environment, Volcano, Idaho, Wyoming, Montana

8000 BC

In Nevada about this time the Lathrop Wells Cone erupted. It is less than a mile from Yucca Mountain, a site later proposed for the long-term storage of radioactive waste.
Links: Nevada, Volcano

Mt. Mazama in what is now Oregon blew up about this time and left what is now called Crater Lake.
Links: Volcano, Oregon

1780 BC

Vesuvius erupted about this time and entombed settlements 15km northwest of the volcano. The Avellino event left evidence at the Nola site that people were able to flee the eruption.
Links: Italy, Volcano, HistoryBC

430 BC

Legend has it that the Greek philosopher Empedocles (b.430) climbed Mount Etna only to leap into its crater in despair. It is said that he jumped in out of frustration because he couldn’t figure out how the volcano worked. Empedocles was the author of a work called "On Nature."
Links: Greece, Philosophy, Volcano

940

Mount Paektu, a volcano straddling the border between North Korea and China, erupted about this time and covered a swath of North-East Asia in ashes. The millennium eruption is believed to have occurred between 930 and 940 AD.
Links: China, Korea, Volcano

1100

A volcano erupted about this time in the area of Flagstaff, Arizona.
Links: Arizona, Volcano

About this period volcanic ash and molten rock sprayed the area of the Wupatki Basin near Flagstaff, Arizona for as long as 200 years.
Links: Arizona, Volcano

1362

In Iceland the Oraefajokull volcano erupted. This eruption was later believed to have eclipsed the 79AD eruption of Mount Vesuvius.
Links: Volcano, Iceland

1783 Jun 8

In Iceland the Lakagicar volcano began erupting. Over the next 6 months it built a lava dam 40 miles long and 540 feet high in a month. The Laki volcano wiped out 75% of the crops, which led to a severe famine that killed some 10,000 people, 20% of the population, reducing the population to some 40,000 people. This was described by Haraldur Sigurdson in an article titled Volcanic Pollution and Climate: Eos 63, Aug. 10, 1982. The Laki eruption sent poisonous gases across Europe. In 2014 Alexandra Witze and Jeff Kanipe authored “Island on Fire: The Extraordinary Story of Laki: the Volcano that Turned Eighteenth-Century Europe Dark.”
Links: Volcano, Iceland, Books

1783 Jun1784 Feb

A series of 10 eruptions from the Laki Craters on Iceland changed atmospheric conditions in most of the Northern Hemisphere. This also generated a cascade of events that led to record low levels of water in the Nile River and brought famine to the region.
Links: Egypt, Africa, Volcano, Iceland

A third of the 13,000 foot Mount Tambora on Sumbawa Island, Indonesia, was blasted into the air. Some 50,000 islanders were killed and the whole planet was shrouded in a debris of sulfuric droplets. In 2006 scientist reported finding traces of Tambora society.
Links: Indonesia, Volcano

18151818

Famine stricken farmers in southwest China turned to growing opium, the most profitable crop then available. The famine was related to the 1815 eruption of Mount Tambora, Indonesia.
Links: China, Volcano, Food, Drugs

1816 Jun 6

There was a 10" snowfall in New England in this "year without a summer". The oceanographer Henry Stommel and his wife Elizabeth described this year in their (1983) book “Volcano Weather: The Story of 1816, The year Without a Summer.” The 1815 eruption of Mt. Tambora lofted a cloud of ash that turned this summer into a virtual winter with snow in Europe and New England.
Links: USA, Indonesia, Volcano

18211823

In Iceland the Eyjafjallajokull volcano erupted over this period.
Links: Volcano, Iceland

1886 Jun 10

Mount Tarawera erupted at Rotorua on the North Island. 155 people were killed and several Maori and European settlements, including Te Wairoa, were destroyed.
Links: Volcano, New Zealand

On the French Island of Martinique in the east W. Indies, the Mt. Pelee volcano blew its top and wiped out the town of St. Pierre. A pyroclastic flow killed over 29,000 people.
Links: France, Volcano, West Indies, Antilles, Martinique

1912 Jun 6

In Alaska the Novarupta volcano began erupting 6 miles from Mount Katmai. When the eruption stopped on June 9th, the ash cloud had spread across southern Alaska. This was later recognized as the most powerful volcanic eruption of the 20th century. Crops withered across Canada and the US that summer under skies shrouded with volcanic ash.
Links: Canada, USA, Volcano, Alaska

1913

Mexico’s active Volcan de Fuego, part of the Colima volcano complex, experienced a major eruption. As of 2012 it has erupted more than 40 times since 1576. Only a fraction of the volcano's surface area is in the state of Colima; the majority of its surface area lies over the border in the neighboring state of Jalisco.
Links: Mexico, Volcano

1914 Jun

Mt. Lassen in northern California began erupting and continued to spew volcanic debris through 1921.
Links: USA, California, Volcano

1930 Nov 21

In Indonesia lava began flowing as the Mount Merapi volcano erupted. 13 villages were destroyed and some 1369 people were killed by pyroclastic flows.
Links: Indonesia, Volcano

A volcano erupted on Guadeloupe and frightened the capital, Basse-Terre. A phreatic eruption of the Soufriere volcano cracked open the summit dome
Links: Volcano, Guadeloupe

1977 Jan 10

The crater walls of Congo’s Nyiragongo volcano fractured, and a lava lake drained in less than an hour. The lava flowed down the flanks of the volcano at speeds of up to 60 miles per hour on the upper slopes, overwhelming villages and killing at least 70 people.
Links: Volcano, CongoDRC

Researchers aboard the deep-sea submersible, Alvin, found an array of unknown and unexpected creatures living beside active volcanic vents in the seafloor in the absence of sunlight and air. Some of the microbes belonged to the group known as Archaea.
Links: USA, Volcano, Biology

Mount St. Helens, dormant for 123 years, erupted with ash and steam. A crater formed at the summit and the north flank began to bulge.
Links: USA, Volcano, Washington

1980 May 18

At 8:32 a.m. Mount Saint Helens, in Washington, erupted. It burst 3 times in 24 hours after rumbling for two months and left 57 people dead or missing. The mountain lost over 1,300 feet of elevation and gained a two-mile-long and one mile-wide crater.
Links: USA, Volcano, Washington

1980 Oct 17

Mt. St. Helens erupted 3 times in 24 hours, in Washington. The eruptions had begun May 18.
Links: USA, Volcano, Washington

Oceanographers aboard the deep submersible Alvin, 1,000 miles off Baja, Ca., located an undersea volcanic vent that was found to contain a new organism called Methanococcus jannaschii and classified as Archaea, distinct from Prokarya and Eukarya.
Links: USA, Microbiology, Volcano

1983 Jan 3

In Hawaii the Pu’u O’o vent of the Kilauea volcano lit up the skies for the first time and began a state of almost constant eruption.
Links: USA, Volcano, Hawaii

The US Volcano Disaster Assistance Program (VDAP) was created by the USGS and the USAID Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance after a mudflow killed more than 23,000 people in Armero, Colombia in 1985.
Links: Colombia, USA, Volcano

In Alaska Mt. Redoubt began erupting. Nearly every one of the volcanic events during the 1989-90 eruption of Redoubt Volcano generated lahars in the Drift River Valley.
Links: USA, Volcano, Alaska

1989 Dec 15

Mt. Redoubt erupted in Alaska and sent baseball-sized pieces of pumice over 20 miles from the volcano. A 747 jet flew into its ash cloud, lost all four engines and dropped 4,000 feet before it recovered. No one was hurt but the plane sustained $80 million in damage.
Links: USA, Volcano, Alaska

1990 Jan 2

A lahar from the Mt. Redoubt volcano in Alaska flooded part of the oil terminal in Cook Inlet.
Links: USA, Volcano, Alaska

The Mount Pinatubo volcano in the Philippines began erupting for the 1st time in 600 years. [see Jun 15]
Links: Philippines, Volcano

1991 Jun 15

Mount Pinatubo (4,750 feet high) exploded in a cataclysmic eruption. Due to early warning 56,000 people were evacuated and only 450 people died. The eruption forced the closure of Clark Air Force Base in Angeles City and displaced hundreds of families of the Aeta tribe. [see June 12]
Links: Philippines, Volcano